About

Cornerstones of Conscious Baby

By truly treating your baby or toddler as a respectable person, meeting him/her on her level, allowing her to lead the way in her development, and communicating in a connected way, you’ll raise a happy, confident child grounded in the foundations you want for her.

Babies are “people.” (Not “blank slates”!) They know what they need and are brilliant communicators and intensely motivated natural learners.

They are already equipped to develop and learn–in tandem with our role of providing loving presence, response, support when needed, and an appropriate environment.

Babies are born conscious and self-aware. There are always differences in personality and temperament. But there are things we can do to allow them to remain open and whole, whereas many common parenting practices inadvertently override their innate abilities.

They will reach motor milestones on their own, if we allow them by refraining from placing them in positions before they can get there by themselves.

Babies are born with a full set of emotions in tact–and a brain that can handle these emotions when their loved ones are present to hold them and listen.

Your non-verbal baby is immensely communicative! …even though you may not know what he’s trying to tell you or how to communicate with him. That’s okay, I speak ‘Baby’ and will teach you how!

Best to avoid all forms of punishment. It’s dehumanizing, disconnecting, and disempowering. Even rewards tend to foster competition rather than collaboration. There are other ways!

We can raise children who are naturally compassionate, cooperative, communicative, confident, honest, and emotionally wise, without manipulation and without having to “teach” them these things later, simply by how we interact with them from the beginning.

Foundations get set up in the first several months: for body health, communication, learning, relationships, and more. We pattern babies by how we handle and interact with them, regardless of whether done consciously or unintentionally!

I’m all about coming down to Baby’s level, baby-led play, and lots of listening, observing, and pausing for Baby’s pace!

Why I do what I do

Babies are capable of so much! They’re born with a multitude of innate abilities.

But society teaches parenting practices that override many innate abilities. These practices are typically considered the norm.

This means that even with the best of intentions, or out of desperation, loving parents can end up raising children in ways that create outcomes opposite what was desired, such as lack of self esteem, decreased motor ability, pent up stress, and challenging behaviors.

Conscious Baby looks those current norms ‘in the face’–is what you’re doing with your baby or toddler truly having the outcome you intended?

I want you to have access to the updated information you need about physical and emotional development that you won’t find in standard parenting advice.

I want to see your baby thrive as an active participant in his/her own development so that you can build authentic relationship and reveal your baby’s innate wisdom and skills (which will knock the socks off anyone near!).

I’m also a Highly Sensitive Person. This is a trait (like hair color) that runs in 15 to 20% of the population. It means that I’m especially sensitive to infants’ non-verbal cues, easily aware of subtleties, and excellent at perceiving if the outcome of how we treat children is what we intended!

As a professional infant nanny for several years, I “had” 19 babies, putting what I teach into practice daily. So I have particular expertise helping you integrate tips for development seamlessly into daily life, because as a new parent, trying to ‘do’ one task after another to make sure your baby turns out okay becomes overwhelming sooner or later!

Formal Bio

A certified Infant Developmental Movement Educator, Aware Parenting Instructor, Body-Mind Centering® Practitioner, spiritual counselor, trained Feldenkrais® practitioner, and Amazon #1 Bestselling Author, Eliza respects babies as whole people who enter the world knowing how to communicate, learn, and self-heal. Her Conscious Baby™ practice employs a unique approach to natural “I can do it myself” milestone development and attunement to non-verbal cues and crying. Eliza’s life-changing perspectives and respectful solutions toward common parenting questions transcend “typical” parenting advice. Her work addresses babies on the “well baby” spectrum and those experiencing challenges such as motor delay, difficulty in tummy time, and hip dysplasia.

Thank You

The wisdom of these folks, in particular, infiltrates my work. All of my views are not necessarily theirs, but their contributions are expressed at various times in my work. Thanks, y’all!

4 Comments

I am Montessori Assistant to Infancy trained and have a great interest in the RIE approach of Magda Gerber. In your opinion what are the major differences between your practices and what Maria Montessori and Magda Gerber discovered about young children. Montessori’s environments change with the sensibilities of each plane of development and as the child’s brain matures; but in the first years of baby and toddlerhood, I see no real difference. Am I missing something?

Hi Marianne,
I am not familiar enough with Montessori to compare. IDME (Infant Developmental Movement Education) and Aware Parenting share similar perspectives as RIE, I believe, on things like waiting for the child’s pace, observing, and not propping ahead of natural development. The main difference I’m aware of between IDME and RIE regarding development are tummy time and facilitation. As IDMEs, we know the reflexes in-depth and how they lead to movement, and we will very respectfully and gently facilitate a baby having challenges with movement or where the reflexes are inhibited because of known or unknown internal or external influences. It’s not about making them do something they’re not ready for; it’s about making their internal/external environment possible for any ‘stuck’ places to open up, and in so doing, allowing more freedom and access to their full potential. We also encourage tummy time, but we come from a very different perspective than traditional literature on tummy time–it is folded into lying on all 4 sides as 3-dimensional moving people; handling skills for placing babies in tummy time (or back time)–not by simply putting them down face-first; and the importance of yielding/resting in gravity, mouthing, and how skeletal support for movement builds–all preceding (and then in tandem with) building muscle strength. That is all I’m aware of regarding differences.

Dear Eliza,
May I share your post about measuring on my facebook page and website? (Learnfromyourbaby.com, Learn From Your Baby) It’s such a cogent insightful summing up of why not to prop up infants, and why they are so agile and capable when they are allowed to develop their judgment about what they can and can’t do, and allowed to figure out on their own how to do it best. The post was sent to me by Jainee McCarroll. I am fortunate to have her and her son Ellis come to my weekly RIE-based, observation and discussion classes.
Thank you in advance if you feel OK about my linking to your post.
Yours,
Kristin Eliasberg